Jigsaw
by Wonko
Summary: Life is made up of a jigsaw of moments. These are some moments from Liara T'Soni's life with Commander Shepard.
1. I to V

**Disclaimer: **Characters and locations belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts. Only the words are mine.

**A note on the format:** This story takes the form of a hundred 100 word drabbles, covering the full spread of Mass Effect 1-3. Not my own idea, and has probably been done better by others, but never mind. I'll be putting the drabbles up in batches of five. These are moments, slices of life, and aren't in chronological order.

**Jigsaw**

by Wonko

I

The first time Liara sees Shepard, she's too relieved to be curious. She's been trapped in this Prothean security field for days, watching helplessly as waves of Geth attempt to break through and capture her.

In ten seconds, Shepard accomplishes what they haven't managed in days.

"Superior firepower," is her cryptic response when Liara asks how she's done it.

Liara decides she likes that. It's very…human. Liara's never met a human before, only read about them on the extranet. They're brash and impatient, she's heard.

Liara steals a glance at Shepard as they ride back to the ship.

Curious…

II

Liara has never kissed anyone before. Not even at school, when it seemed every other Asari 'experimented'. She's always been shy, and the whispers have always been there, just within earshot.

"…and her father was a…"

"…her mother bonded with…"

"…she's a pure…"

It's somehow freeing to be on a human ship. Her mother's allegiances earn her some suspicion, but that at least makes sense to her. Not like asari pureblood hysteria.

Humans don't seem to care. She haltingly admits her parentage to Shepard, expecting…something. The human just listens. She's interested. Polite. Respectful.

And her lips look really soft.

III

Shepard's having another of her nightmares. Liara has asked her about them before, but Shepard just shrugs and closes off. There's a war to fight, she says. She even manages to hide it when they're making love, denying the questioning touch of her lover's mind. The melding is not telepathy, not exactly. They don't speak to each other in words. But they do communicate: in images, in emotions, in sensation. When they are together, naked in the dark, Liara can feel the emptiness where Shepard keeps her nightmares. It frightens her. She doesn't know how to make it go away.

IV

Liara isn't sure why they're having a picnic on Ontarom of all places, but she isn't complaining. The high ambient temperature of the planet has produced a very attractive sheen of moisture on Shepard's skin. Liara licks her suddenly dry lips.

"Does that space-cow look…shifty to you?" Shepard asks. Although she chose the location, the local fauna aren't her cup of tea.

"How can a cow look 'shifty'?" Liara replies, smiling.

Shepard is patting her pockets. "I don't trust any animal that can milk itself," she mutters, then looks up sharply. "I think that cow stole my credit chit!"

V

Shepard is dead.

Dead.

Her lover is dead. The ship is gone. Nothing remains. Not even the squad.

They are taken to Earth after they are rescued. The cradle of humanity. Liara might have found it beautiful, at another time, in another life. But this was not where Shepard came from.

Shepard was of the stars.

After debrief, Liara returns to space. Her mother's money buys her a small ship and lots of silence.

In what she calls night, she thinks of her mother: dying and afraid.

Liara nods. _Yes_, she thinks. _Death has come, and there is no light_.


	2. VI to X

**Disclaimer: **Characters and locations belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts. Only the words are mine.

**A note on the format:** This story takes the form of a hundred 100 word drabbles, covering the full spread of Mass Effect 1-3. Not my own idea, and has probably been done better by others, but never mind. I'll be putting the drabbles up in batches of five. These are moments, slices of life, and aren't in chronological order.

**Jigsaw**

by Wonko

VI

For all her talk of taking it slow, waiting until Saren is gone, Liara can't help feeling disappointed that Joker interrupted them. As she heads to her locker to gear up, she thinks of Shepard's lips, so close to hers.

Then, suddenly, she's there. Liara doesn't know how she made it down here so fast and, when Shepard gently turns her round and takes her face between soft palms, she doesn't care.

"I know you wanted to wait," Shepard murmurs, "and I know this is a really bad time…"

Then they're kissing, and Liara doesn't care about going slow anymore.

VII

She finds Shepard's hair fascinating. Not just the way it looks or feels or catches the light. The very fact of its existence. She can't think of a single other sapient species that has evolved in this way. Turians, salarians, asari, batarians, drell, hanar, elcor, volus…volus? Well, she's never seen inside a pressure suit. Maybe… Then there are quarians. She'll have to remember to ask Tali if quarians have hair.

"Stop thinking so loud," Shepard whispers. "I'm trying to sleep."

Liara instinctively pulls her hand back from stroking Shepard's hair.

Shepard opens her eyes. "You can keep doing _that_."

VIII

Finally.

She's been fighting so long to find her, it's hard to believe it's finally over. After all the setbacks and betrayals and Feron's unlikely sacrifice, Shepard's body is in her grasp.

Liara knows what Shepard would probably want. She'd want her to wrap the pod in the Alliance flag and shoot it into a nearby star. Full military honours.

But she's not military. She's never been able to understand what honour there is in death.

And she can't let her go. Above all…she can't let her go.

Miranda's waiting for her choice. "Do it," she says. Turns away.

IX

She told Shepard she was fine. She's not fine. How could she be fine? She may be old by the standards of most species, but to the asari a hundred and six is practically the blink of an eye. Too young to be an orphan. Too young to be all alone in the world.

When the tears come, she can't make them stop. She thinks of her mother, her mind stolen and corrupted. Fear, regret, death.

She tries to remember good times, joy. What Benezia would want.

Instead, she thinks about how nothing will ever be the same again.

Nothing.

X

She hasn't seen Shepard for months, not since a hasty goodbye in the midst of Hagalaz's perpetual storms before she left to face the music back on Earth. Liara knows the destruction of the Bahak system weighs heavily on her, though she suspects she's the only one ever to see just how much. She wonders how many people have ever seen Shepard cry.

"Shepard! Thank the goddess you're alive," is all she can think to say.

Shepard moves close enough to touch. "You too, Liara," she says, and – despite the Reapers, Earth, Cerberus, and everything else – something inside Liara awakens.


	3. XI to XV

**Disclaimer: **Characters and locations belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts. Only the words are mine.

**A note on the format:** This story takes the form of a hundred 100 word drabbles, covering the full spread of Mass Effect 1-3. Not my own idea, and has probably been done better by others, but never mind. I'll be putting the drabbles up in batches of five. These are moments, slices of life, and aren't in chronological order.

**Jigsaw**

by Wonko

XI

EDI won't come online, and no-one's sure why. The damage to the Normandy isn't severe enough to cause this apparent total system failure. When Joker and Liara go to the AI core, it becomes clear. The blue box is completely fried – irreparably. It's as if the energy that seemed to chase them through the Mass Relay focused exclusively on EDI's processor.

Joker is heartbroken. Liara isn't sure if it's EDI he's mourning or the ship that simply won't work without her. Maybe it's both.

The computer on the Kodiak tells Liara they're on Nevos. Three hundred light years from Earth.

XII

"Shepard!"

It's been two years since she left Shepard's body with Cerberus; two years that she's spent consumed by a hunger for revenge against the Shadow Broker, the Collectors, the universe itself.

In an instant, she forgets it all. Shepard comes closer, her eyes seeking Liara's and finding them. Some part of Liara wonders still if this is really her, if it _can_ really be her and not just some sophisticated VI stuck in her head.

With a single touch, she knows. As they kiss, for just the briefest moment, Liara actually believes that everything's going to be all right.

XIII

When they return from the surface of Edolus, Shepard goes straight to her cabin without speaking. Kaiden looks on with what seems to be sympathy and concern. Liara doesn't understand, and doesn't want to ask. Surely the dead marines they found wouldn't cause this reaction. She retreats to the safety of her room behind the med-bay and searches the extranet for the keywords 'Commander Shepard' and 'thresher maw'.

The result explains all too viscerally why Shepard returned to the ship with her eyes empty and her face bloodless.

Before she can think it over, Liara is knocking on Shepard's door.

XIV

The meld is like nothing Liara has ever experienced, or even imagined. Other asari have described it to her in rapturous terms, but it's not something that can be adequately put into words. She has her arms wrapped around Shepard's trembling shoulders, holding the human woman close to her body as they join. She feels the warmth of tears against her neck and it takes her a moment to realise that she is crying too. She doesn't need to ask if Shepard is all right. Everything they are both feeling washes through her like a wave. This is joy. Joy.

XV

Liara isn't sure what to do when they leave Virmire. She can see what leaving Ashley behind has done to Shepard. There is a haunted look in her eyes that Liara aches to soothe away. But perhaps she needs some time alone.

Or not. Shepard comes to her after speaking to the council, silent and brooding.

When she begins to cry, Liara understands what Shepard needs. "It's all right," she murmurs, taking her into her arms. Shepard crumples against her, suddenly very small and fragile, and Liara knows she'll never – in all her long life – love anyone more than this.


	4. XVI to XX

**Disclaimer: **Characters and locations belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts. Only the words are mine.

**A note on the format:** This story takes the form of a hundred 100 word drabbles, covering the full spread of Mass Effect 1-3. Not my own idea, and has probably been done better by others, but never mind. I'll be putting the drabbles up in batches of five. These are moments, slices of life, and aren't in chronological order.

**Sorry**: For the long wait between updates. Lot of family commitments over the Easter break. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favourited this silly wee thing. I appreciate it!

**Jigsaw**

by Wonko

XVI

Although she's always carried a pistol on dig sites, Liara hasn't had much call to use one before joining The Normandy. With her biotics she can shield herself, lift objects high in the air, warp matter at the molecular level - she's rarely encountered a situation in which these skills weren't enough.

After their first mission together, Shepard takes Liara's weapons training in hand personally. "Like this," she says, adjusting Liara's stance with gentle but firm hands on her hips.

Liara's skin has never burned like this before. As she squeezes the trigger, she wonders what it means.

She misses.

XVII

Liara drops her pistol and sprints across the battlefield. In her ears is the seafoam sound of blood rushing back and forth. When she reaches Shepard and the husk she is breathing hard and her sides ache. Clumsily, she grabs the foul creature by the shoulders and pulls it away from Shepard. Its mouth is spread in a parody of a grin, all grey flesh and blue metal. She brings up her fist and punches wildly, then again, again, again, _again_ until the thing is long past dead and her own blood is dripping from her knuckles down her arm.

XVIII

Liara crouches behind what used to be a display of Thessian wildflowers, listening to Shepard and Saren trying to talk each other round. She wonders if she could get a shot off while he's distracted, and glances over at Garrus to see him trying to get a clear line of sight, obviously thinking the same thing.

Saren is rambling insanely now, talking about the synthesis of organic and synthetic life personified in his mutilated body. Her stomach rolls over. If that truly is the evolutionary destiny of organic life, as he says, she thinks she'd rather just go down fighting.

XIX

When the attack comes, there is no warning. One moment she's flirting playfully in the doorway to Shepard's quarters, the next she's running for her life, trying to reach the lockers to gear up. She needs to get into a suit of pressurised body armour in case of hull breaches, and just grabs the first set she comes across. Later she'll realise it's Ashley's, untouched since her death, and feel a little strange, a little guilty.

The last time she sees Shepard she's ordering the evacuation. Later, she'll wish she'd said, "I love you." She'll wish a lot of things.

XX

When her time capsule is finally ready, she starts to feel a little nervous. The factual information is fine, no-one can argue with that. She doesn't know how Shepard will react to her own entry though. Will she think it frivolous? Silly? Arrogant?

In the end, there's no need to worry. Shepard gently asks her to complete the entry however she sees fit. Their eyes meet and Liara speaks, listing her lover's qualities and achievements with a fierce pride in her chest. She says it was a privilege to know her. Later, she goes back and replaces 'know' with 'love'.


End file.
